From 1901 on, Annie Alexander
supported paleontological research and collecting at the
University of California. In 1921, after the Department of Paleontology
had been merged with the Department of Geology, Miss Alexander chose to
endow the Museum of Paleontology as a research institution separate from
the academic departments. This letter gives University President Barrows's
response. Scroll down below the letter to read a transcription. View
other documents
and photographs from the UCMP collections.

The letter reads:

Berkeley, March 14, 1921.

My dear Miss Alexander:
I am happy to advise you that at their last meeting the Regents gratefully
accepted your fine provision for a museum of palaeontology. It will be
my solicitude as well as theirs, to see that your desires are realized
in the administration of this donation, and that a museum of
palaeontology is created here comparable to the fine research institutions
which we owe to your foresight and beneficence.

I have had an estimate made by the Superintendent of Grounds of the changes
necessary in Bacon Hall, in the hope that our funds will enable us to
carry through these alterations for the beginning of the next academic year.